Setting Expectations for Babies

I don't know about you, but it seems like a lot of people I know are having babies.  Three people I know have given birth in the past several months; another couple I know found out they were expecting a few months ago . . . baby to arrive in February.

One thing that has surprised me about all of these couples: they ALL decided to find out the sex of the child before it was born.

I find this both surprising and alarming.  On one hand, we are allegedly living in a time and a place where we are open-minded, egalitarian, and unbiased about gender . . . so parents should not care whether they are having a boy or a girl (and I'm sure if I asked them they would say the would be delighted with either) and having that information should not have any significant bearing on the pregnancy or getting ready for the child arrival.  This is why I am surprised when so many parents opt to find out in advance.  (Some parents even throw 'gender reveal' parties for friends to announce what sort of genitals their kid is expected to have . . . thankfully none of my friends did this to my knowledge.)

Pink Christmas

With the holidays swiftly approaching (although by the looks of stores, the holidays have been here since October) I've been thinking a lot about gift-giving. Specifically, I've been thinking a lot about gifts for children. My boyfriend's niece, Annaliese, was born around Christmas last year so baby girl presents have been on my radar.

Not too long ago, a video was circling on Facebook advertising GoldieBlox, which are basically toy engineering sets for little girls. The ad has been under a lot of scrutiny due to a lawsuit with the Beastie Boys over the unauthorized use of their song "Girls" with updated lyrics like: "You like to buy us pink toys, and everything else is for boys and you can always get us dolls and we'll grow up like them ... false." Here is the ad without the song in the background:

I did however have a chance to watch the original video before it was taken down and it was very entertaining and creative. The basic message is that girls can be future engineers and are more than just princesses and dolls.

Yet, the toys themselves are mostly pink and the theme of one of the toy sets is "Goldie Blox and the Parade Float" (Goldie, the blonde character that the product name references, is participating in a princess pageant). The company's website claims that they are "disrupting the pink aisle" by "designing a toy from the female perspective" but how can that be so if the toys are only enforcing gender stereotypes. Don't get me wrong, the message is fantastic.  I just wonder why toymakers think girls won't be interested in something that isn't pink or related to their idea of the cliched "female perspective". When I was younger I had a K'NEX set that I loved playing with and building things like swing sets and amusement park rides. It wasn't pink and it certainly wasn't a princess pageant. This kind of gender stereotyping is one of the many reasons that girls aren't involved in science or engineering. But that is a whole other discussion.

With a baby girl to buy for I have been extremely conscious of the toys, clothes, and other baby items made for girls. Most of which are pink. I know she's only turning 1 year old and none of these toys or clothes will really mean anything to her now but as she gets older it is something that I think about as I do with all girls. How can we encourage gender equality and feminism in our younger generations when the divide is so clear even at a young age? The colors pink and blue don't mean anything until you give them meaning. I think GoldieBlox has good intentions but needs a little work to get on track. I'll open this up to discussion - What do you think of GoldieBlox? How much influence do toys have on children? Does the color pink actually mean anything? Are there other toy companies out there with similar missions that succeed in ways that GoldieBlox does not? Do we even need to have separate girls and boys engineering toys? Am I just totally over thinking this?

Lisa

In Re: [Mother's Name]

By Jen

In September I began working for the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) in Texas. I was probably a little too excited to be starting a state job. I was very enthusiastic about the training process, but I'm sure the overburdened bureaucracy will get to me sooner rather than later. For a few months now I've been imagining writing a piece about how child protection policies here in Texas treat mothers in cases of abuse and neglect.

One of the most striking pieces of the training was in the seemingly most mundane aspect of the job: documentation and record creation.  For today, I'll focus on one bit policy which is assigning a "case name" for a case of abuse or neglect on a child.

The DFPS rule on giving a case a name is that the mother's name is the default name assigned to the case. To be clear, having a case named "Jett, Joan," for example, does not mean that the "alleged perpetrator" of the abuse in the case is going to be Ms. Jett. Using the mother's name is one way the state attempts to distinguish one case from other cases.

During training I tried to swallow this little bit of departmental policy and chase it with a tall glass of water. Still the idea continues to nag at me as I ask the question over and over again everyday: What is the name of the mother of the child? The mother's name may be made the official name of a case even if she is incarcerated and some other family member is caring for the child(ren).

It's not that there aren't exceptions to this rule. For example, the name of a case would change to a foster parent's name if a child had been removed from a home and adopted by a new family. However, even in this case, the name of the case would Foster mother's name. The name used to identify the case of abuse or neglect will also change if some other relative or person has gone through the process of legally obtaining guardianship of the child.

I've tried to see the logical side of this policy decision: the overwhelming statistical evidence of female headed, single parent households or all of the fraught history of preference of the mother in child custody warfare. And, certainly, those examples work to create the context in which the decision was made to stamp every TX Child protective Services case with "MOTHER." But I cannot help but be bothered by the decision to take the mother's name the distinguishing mark of the case. Shouldn't a case number suffice?

In any case, I hope to continue to explore social and protective policy issues in future posts. I hope there's an audience for it here!